Quoth the Maven

Quoth the Maven

William Safire

The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist discusses modern figures of speech, from witty tales approximately expressions akin to "kiss and tell" and "stab within the back" to the evolution of "read my lips."

And requested if he used to be the resource; he demurred (a verb in diplolingo that suggests “denied, purring”), including, “Americans aren't so ductile.” all right, you men within the interagency job forces engaged on a succession of summits, this week’s adjective is ductile: “easily molded; tractable; pliable.” Any otiose sherpa who can't use it in a sentence approximately hands negotiations is feckless. at the probability that I’m pointing out the most obvious: The phrases negotiations and otiose, that you utilized in an analogous sentence, come.

Localized New Orleans expression. For the main half, these “who speak Cajun-style” nonetheless stay both alongside the bayous south of recent Orleans or at the prairies within the western a part of the nation. Many Cajuns have, in fact, moved into town through the years, yet they've got usually misplaced their “Cajun-style” language. “Yats,” nonetheless, are New Orleanians who reside, for the main half, within the 9th Ward within the japanese a part of the town the place a heavy payment of Irish and Italians within the final.

After perestroika and peredyshka? resolution: perestrelka. inform that to a Russian dissident and you'll get a lot thigh-slapping hilarity via a tragic nod; perestrelka potential “crossfire” as in “shootout” or “reshoot” and isn't a cameraman’s time period yet a connection with an analogous type of crackdown that Mao’s misleading name to “let 100 flora blossom, allow 100 faculties of notion contend.” Then, whammo—for the newly noisy glasnostic perestroikanik, it’s perestrelka. expensive Bill,.

Hand-finished. The challenging fact approximately delicate cash Moneta was once the cult name of the Roman goddess Juno, in whose temple cash have been stamped out; that’s the place the be aware funds comes from. the basis of a lot evil, in spite of the fact that, is within the modifiers of money—the adjectives that sow such confusion you want to turn a coin to make your mind up their meanings. humorous cash is apparent: counterfeit. Tight funds is both particular: cash that's expensive to borrow, coming from a coverage aimed toward stifling inflation; the.

female friend has forgotten what you seem like. the cash you owe in class loans might purchase a modest domestic. To hell with breakfast, you wish liver rounds (cocktails)! Drew B. Schembre, M.D. collage of Utah scientific heart Salt Lake urban, Utah You appear to say that the expression “to be at the bubble” is a soccer expression and speak to it “an instance of the recent slang—late-1980’s lingo.…” whereas the expression—meaning to be in a precarious place, as on a bubble which could burst—has certainly.